Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to collaboration surrounding medical images and more specifically relates to primary diagnoses, secondary opinions and collaboration between professionals facilitated by medical images.
Related Art
In conventional medical image based cases, an individual medical professional may feel uncomfortable rendering a final diagnosis on a difficult case and/or a case outside his or her area of expertise. Such a medical professional may want to consult with a peer or a recognized expert in the particular subject matter of the medical image based case. Similarly, a medical practice group or hospital or health care company may desire to consolidate its diagnoses for medical image based cases. Such consolidation may be within the medical group or hospital or health care company or may be external to the medical group or hospital or health care company. Conventional systems based upon glass microscope slides or proprietary medical imaging systems fail to allow easy, scalable and reliable collaboration on medical image based cases. Digital imaging for medical image based cases holds the promise of allowing some level of collaboration but has not been able to overcome the significant technical and administrative challenges associated with medical image based collaboration. Therefore, what is needed is a system and method that provides for easy, scalable and reliable medical based image collaboration to meet the needs of individual medical professionals while also meeting the needs of medical groups and hospitals and health care companies and the like.